By Emelie Rutherford
Faced with senators frustrated by reports of delays in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s initial operational capability (IOC), Air Force leaders said yesterday their service may not know for months how much of schedule shift is needed.
Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said the decision on whether his service’s IOC for the multi-service aircraft will fall later than fiscal year 2013, as previously planned, will be determined by Air Combat Command head Gen. William Fraser.
Fraser must settle on the requirements for the Lockheed Martin [LMT] jets’ IOC and also must determine the capabilities of the jets to be delivered, Donley told reporters yesterday after a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing.
“That is still being worked out as we negotiate the restructured program going forward,” he said. “So we have to merge those (two) things together to establish firmly what a date will be.”
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz added that “there is some uncertainty on a couple of those questions still…so we want to tidy that up.”
Schwartz said he expects to know in “months” what the IOC will be for his service’s F-35, which is a conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant.
Donley acknowledged yesterday to the SASC that, for the Air Force’s jets coming from recently restructured F-35 program, the IOC date is “certainly beyond 2013.” He did not commit to a date, citing the ongoing analysis by Fraser.
On Tuesday, Donley told reporters the Air Force’s F-35 likely will not be ready until “late in calendar year 2015.” (Defense Daily, March 3)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates previous told lawmakers, during hearings on the FY ’11 Pentagon budget request released Feb. 1, that he did not expect the F-35’s IOC dates for the military services to slip because of the program’s restructuring.
SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) said yesterday he is a “strong supporter” of the F-35 but is “very disturbed” by the process the Pentagon has used to assess risk and notify lawmakers of program changes.
“We have not, I believe, members of the Armed Services Committee or Congress…been adequately informed of (what) the extent of the difficulties are,” McCain said during the posture hearing on the Air Force’s FY ’11 budget.
He cited the news reporters of a two-year delay in the aircraft’s IOC, which resulted from his comments at a Defense Writers Group breakfast on Tuesday.
The SASC plans to hold a hearing on the F-35 program, Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said. The hearing will likely be next week but was not scheduled as of the end of the day yesterday. For topics to be addressed, Levin cited troubles with the F-35’s system design and demonstration phase and firing of its program manager, along with Donley’s comments regarding the Air Force’s IOC slipping and the program likely facing a cost breach triggering a recertification under the Nunn-McCurdy statute.
Gates announced last month the Pentagon is extending the F-35’s development phase and reducing the number of production aircraft delivered in the early years. The restructuring was spurred by reviews conducted last year that found schedule delays, cost growth, and technical problems.
McCain said he is “very concerned” about the F-35 program’s stability.
“Despite Secretary Gates’ decision to restructure the program, I remained concerned about the ability of the test program to detect and anticipate problems, how effectively software risk will be managed going forward, whether deficiencies in the program’s manufacturing processes will be resolved so that flight testing and production holds schedule, and the capability of those aircraft will be delivered under, quote, ‘low-rate initial-production,’ unquote,” McCain said.
He noted Gates just this month said the IOC schedules would not change, before news reports emerged saying the Air Force’s date would be delayed.
“It appears that just over the last few weeks the (defense) secretary and the services have increased their appreciation of the development and production risks associated with the program,” McCain said.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) expressed frustration with the Air Force’s anticipated F-35 IOC delay; Congress and President Barack Obama agreed last year to end production of Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter jets, a decision Chambliss fought against, under the auspice of the F-35 jets being delivered on schedule.
Chambliss grilled Donley and Schwartz about why they did not tell the SASC last year about reports from the Pentagon’s Joint Estimating Team that predicted F-35 cost overruns and schedule delays.
Donley said the Pentagon was still reviewing the program at the time.
“The independent estimates at that time had not received a level of validation that I felt was compelling,” Schwartz said.